Primary Menu

Biography of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur

The other day—it was more like two weeks ago—I purchased the new three-volume set of Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Vaibhava from an ISKCON sankirtan devotee named Hari das, who traveled all the way to Tangkak to make the sale. He was in a hurry, and it was all we could do to prevail on him to take a bite of maha-prasada samosa before he got into his van and went on his way. And no sooner did he leave than I brought the books upstairs, sat down and opened them up.

The author, Bhakti Vikasa Swami, is a disciple of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, initiated in London (he is British) in the year 1975 with the name Ilapati das. In 1989 he took sannyasa, and since then has been known as Bhakti Vikasa Swami.

I met him in Bombay some years back, and in fact, he asked me how to contact Hansadutta, because he so appreciated Hansadutta’s book Hammer for Smashing Illusion that he wanted also to print it. Since then, Maharaja has been busy writing his own books, and it is quite a list:

Maharaja has his own website also: http://www.bvks.com, featuring a veritable repository of his lectures available in audio or video format. A number of them are in Hindi. Maharaja appears to be proficient in Hindi and Bengali. Clearly he has a scholarly turn of mind, and is putting it to use in serving ISKCON.

Back to the books… I eagerly removed the books out from their case and examined them. It’s a handsome set. Published by Bhakti Vikasa Trust in Surat, India, 2009. ISBN (3-vol set) 978-81-908292-0-5. The standard of print is excellent. These are hardbound books with sewn binding, and although they do not have jackets, the covers are a beautiful gold-colored, smooth paper with foil embossing and laminated photo. Text is set in comfortably spaced Times 10 pt black text on cream-colored paper, looks like 80g weight. Volume 1 has 579 pages, Volume 2 has 559 pages, and Volume 3 has 346 pages. There is a glossary, pronunciation guide and extensive index.

This is a biography of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, 31st prominent acharya in the disciplic succession known as Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya Sampradaya. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur was an exceptionally bright scholar in his youth, but did not let that get in the way of serving his beloved Gurudev; he founded and headed the Gaudiya Math in India, and carried the torch of Lord Chaitanya’s mission. He was a prominent spiritual figure in India, but years later, long after his departure, he became known around the world for having as his disciple the world-famous His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

The books are divided up into parts:

Part One: Biographical Overview
Part Two: His Message, Mission and Personality
Part Three: The Preaching Challenge
Part Four: Disciples, Associates and Acquaintances
Part Five: His Contributions Reviewed

It is an impressive body of work, and I wonder whether at times Maharaja might have found all the research and writing of it seemingly an insurmountable undertaking. So I really want to thank Maharaja for seeing it through.

I do have a question, however, concerning his understanding of the spiritual status of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur. Right in the beginning, on page xv, Bhakti Vikasa Swami recites pranams to Srila Prabhupada and to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur. These are the standard Sanskrit verses, known to all devotees in ISKCON. But Bhakti Vikas Swami has translated them differently from the familiar English translations that were approved by Srila Prabhupada himself. I don’t know why he took the liberty to do so. First of all, the wording is not so poetic, and the the words “I salute” and “I offer homage to” do not evoke the same transcendental mood as “I offer my respectful obeisances unto”, at least not for me. Second of all—and more significantly—the prayer has taken on an entirely new meaning from the original approved by Srila Prabhupada. Compare:

Original: “I offer my respectful obeisances unto His Divine Grace Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, who is very dear to Lord Krishna, having taken shelter at His lotus feet.”

Revised: “I salute him who is known in this world as His Divine Grace Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Prabhupada, who is of the same status as Lord Vishnu and is most dear to Lord Krishna.”

Here is the word-for-word translation of the prayer:

Word-for-word translation: namahom–address; vishnu-padaya–unto him who is at the feet of Lord Vishnu; krishna-presthaya–who is very dear to Lord Krishna; bhu-tale–on the earth; srimate–all-beautiful; bhaktivedanta-svamin–A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami; iti–thus; namine–who is named.

From where does Bhakti Vikas Maharaj infer that the Sanskrit translates to saying that Srila Prabhupada or Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur are of the same status as Lord Vishnu?

It may seem like a small thing to quibble over, but it’s at odds with the core principle of Krishna consciousness, which is that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and the spiritual master is His supreme servitor.

In 1970, Srila Prabhupada threatened to withdraw from the Society when he learned that some of his sannyasis were mischaracterizing him, claiming that he was on the same level as God. He identified this as Mayavadi influence. This episode was recorded in his correspondence:

My Dear Gargamuni Maharaja,
Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated October 1st, 1970 and have noted the contents carefully. In regards to why you have been branded as Mayavadi sannyasi by society members, that is because you are identifying the Spiritual Master as God. We always represent ourselves as servant of God and you are preaching contrary. The Spiritual Master should be given respect of God but that doesn’t mean he is God. That is Mayavadi. You should always remember that the Spiritual Master is the representative of God and should be given the respect of God but that doesn’t mean that he is God Himself! You can speak of the Spiritual Master as “servant God” whereas Krishna is “master God”. I think this is sufficient to clear the idea. — Letter to Gargamuni, Bombay, October 27, 1970 (70-10-27)

Srila Prabhupada further explained in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita:

Adi-lila Chapter One, Text 46: “One should know the acharya as Myself and never disrespect him in any way. One should not envy him, thinking him an ordinary man, for he is the representative of all the demigods.”

excerpt from Purport: Only out of His immense compassion does the Personality of Godhead reveal Himself as the spiritual master. Therefore in the dealings of an acharya there are no activities but those of transcendental loving service to the Lord. He is the Supreme Personality of Servitor Godhead. It is worthwhile to take shelter of such a steady devotee, who is called acharya-vigraha, or the manifestation or form of the Lord of whom one must take shelter.

If one poses himself as an acharya but does not have an attitude of servitorship to the Lord, he must be considered an offender, and this offensive attitude disqualifies him from being an acharya. The bona fide spiritual master always engages in unalloyed devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. By this test he is known to be a direct manifestation of the Lord and a genuine representative of Sri Nityananda Prabhu. Such a spiritual master is known as acharyadeva. Influenced by an envious temperament and dissatisfied because of an attitude of sense gratification, mundaners criticize a real acharya. In fact, however, a bona fide acharya is nondifferent from the Personality of Godhead, and therefore to envy such an acharya is to envy the Personality of Godhead Himself. This will produce an effect subversive of transcendental realization.

As mentioned previously, a disciple should always respect the spiritual master as a manifestation of Sri Krishna, but at the same time one should always remember that a spiritual master is never authorized to imitate the transcendental pastimes of the Lord. False spiritual masters pose themselves as identical with Sri Krishna in every respect to exploit the sentiments of their disciples, but such impersonalists can only mislead their disciples, for their ultimate aim is to become one with the Lord. This is against the principles of the devotional cult.

The real Vedic philosophy is achintya-bhedabheda-tattva, which establishes everything to be simultaneously one with and different from the Personality of Godhead. Srila Raghunatha dasa Gosvami confirms that this is the real position of a bona fide spiritual master and says that one should always think of the spiritual master in terms of his intimate relationship with Mukunda (Sri Krishna). Srila Jiva Gosvami, in his Bhakti-sandarbha (213), has clearly explained that a pure devotee’s observation of the spiritual master and Lord Shiva as being one with the Personality of Godhead exists in terms of their being very dear to the Lord, not identical with Him in all respects. Following in the footsteps of Srila Raghunatha dasa Gosvami and Srila Jiva Gosvami, later acharys like Srila Vishvanatha Chakravarti Thakura have confirmed the same truths. In his prayers to the spiritual master, Srila Vishvanatha Chakravarti Thakura confirms that all the revealed scriptures accept the spiritual master to be identical with the Personality of Godhead because he is a very dear and confidential servant of the Lord. Gaudiya Vaishnavas therefore worship Srila Gurudeva (the spiritual master) in the light of his being the servitor of the Personality of Godhead. In all the ancient literatures of devotional service and in the more recent songs of Srila Narottama dasa Thakura, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura and other unalloyed Vaishnavas, the spiritual master is always considered either one of the confidential associates of Srimati Radharani or a manifested representation of Srila Nityananda Prabhu.

Apart from this, I offer my respect to Maharaja. From what I can see, he appears to be a person of integrity and steadfast faith in Srila Prabhupada. I was looking around on his website and saw that he has published a statement, dated April 22, 2012, of objection to ISKCON policies that he finds are not in line with Srila Prabhupada’s instructions.

I do not support ISKCON’s pronounced tendency toward Hinduization and to secular influences such as those of bodily welfare work, mundane feminism, mundane psychology, and mundane scholarship.

Although he does not intend to leave ISKCON, he feels bound to speak out. He humbly admits, “I do not claim to be absolute and incapable of error. But as a follower of Srila Prabhupda and as a member of the sannyasa order, I have an obligation to communiate what I understand to be correct, according to Srila Prabhupada’s teachings….” Read the statement in its entirety.

I am curious to know what Bhakti Vikas Swami thinks about the changes to Srila Prabhupada’s books and minimization of Srila Prabhupada, including a breakdown in the discipline of accepting his teachings and instructions without interpretation. Several ISKCON gurus (counting also some of the ‘exes’) feel quite free to question the absolute authority of Srila Prabhupada and even go so far as to ask whether his books or some content in them is even relevant. Since Maharaja has taken on disciples, likely he accepts the ISKCON party line on that issue, but still I would like to know what he personally thinks or if he has given any thought at all to Srila Prabhupada’s final directive, the July 9th letter and the initiation of new candidates.

Post navigation

One thought on “Biography of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur”

Dear Hansadutta Das,I remember you in Berkely in 1976 or so. I used to frqnueet the temple there often. I have not been to an ISKCON temple since then although I occasionally try to keep up on ISKCON news. I am a devotee of Avatar Meher Baba. I have no qualifications to judge but the letter you’ve shared seems to clearly spell out Srila Prabhupada’s wishes. It makes it very clear: The newly initiated devotees are disciples of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada It is truly a shame that ISKCON has been divided all these years and I pray your efforts are helpful. Congratulations on your honesty and sincere work.